Are the ways of engaging with the world that students develop through higher education particular to bodies of knowledge they study? In this article, we examine how students' accounts of the discipline of chemistry in England and South Africa changed over the three years of their undergraduate degrees. Based on a longitudinal phenomenographic…

This case study demonstrates teaching and learning activities in the school laboratory, and employs talk moves for the direct assessment of practical task effectiveness. By adopting a sociocultural linguistic approach (SCLA), learning chemistry is understood to be a discursive process in which knowledge is constructed through social interaction…

A team of six children (13-14 years old) developed and conducted an experiment to assess the behaviour of the planarian flatworm, an invertebrate animal model, before, during and after exposure to chemicals. The aim of the project was to engage children in pharmacology and toxicology research. First, the concept that exposure to chemicals can…

Open day activities rarely give applicants a real sense of the practical and intellectual work that goes on in university chemistry departments. We devised an experiment for year 13 (age 17-18) students based on the size-dependent colours of gold nanoparticles and linked this to current research in diagnostic medicine. The experience was designed…

This article describes how a university and a museum have worked together to create a "How science works" workshop entitled "What's in our water?" The workshop teaches students about the continuing pollution from a disused coal mine, how the pollution is cleaned up using a state-of-the-art treatment works and how scientists…

Described is a conductiometric method for following the course of diffusion of aquated ions through a cellulose membrane. Several experiments using the method are described. (Author/SA)

Presented is an expression of opinion on the use of the discovery method in secondary school chemistry classes. The author believes that general rules (lemmas) should be given to students and then they should attempt to disprove the lemmas by observation of experiments. (Author/SA)

Presented is a compilation of eight articles relating to science teaching in England, primarily at the secondary school level. An editorial describes recent changes in sciences and science education, decreased student enrollment in science courses, and increasing emphases on scientific methods training. The articles are then presented in three…

Feeling that projects in chemistry could be used effectively to enhance appreciation of chemistry, a project-based course for the first-year sixth formers was developed in 1973 and because of its success another was organized. Projects from both courses are described. (EB)